


For What it's Worth

by frostwitch



Series: SaiOuma Week (2020) [4]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Tragedy, Bipolar Disorder, Bisexual Saihara Shuichi, But Shuichi tells them off, Canon Compliant, Canon Universe, Canonical Character Death, Dangan Ronpa Spoilers, Gay Oma Kokichi, Heavy Angst, Killing Game (Dangan Ronpa), Kokichi is dead, M/M, New Dangan Ronpa V3 Spoilers, People are misogynistic and ableist towards Himiko and Maki, Post-Canon, Sad Saihara Shuichi, Shuichi is bipolar, Tired Saihara Shuichi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:47:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25751578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frostwitch/pseuds/frostwitch
Summary: Chosen Prompt(s) for Day #6: | Angst |The survivors are tasked with giving the belongings of their deceased classmates back to their families. No one comes to claim Kokichi’s things, so Shuichi takes the liberty of sorting through them before his final departure.
Relationships: Oma Kokichi/Saihara Shuichi
Series: SaiOuma Week (2020) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1856209
Comments: 20
Kudos: 264





	For What it's Worth

Death is often mischaracterized by the living. It’s not violent or cruel, and it doesn’t ask for much. It takes even less. But death gives. It gives and gives until it hurts, until your heart crawls out of your mouth and the fire in your bones meets the gasoline in your eyes. It gives until the last drop of blood comes pouring out, leaving your body cold and clean in its wake. Until your body collapses with the weight of more gifts than you could ever hope to carry, and there’s nothing left you can bring yourself to want. 

Shuichi Saihara knows this. Knows death is far more generous than life, so much kinder than sleep. Bristles at the words “I’m sorry for your loss.” Because “sorry” won’t bring back Kaede’s smile, or Kaito’s motivational speeches, or Gonta’s compassion for all living things. Apologies don’t turn back time. Sometimes, “sorry” feels like an insult to the dead, who don’t have the luxury of being coddled like the living. 

It’s not enough. No amount of "sorry"s will ever be enough. 

Not for Shuichi, at least. Himiko doesn’t seem to mind being bombarded with the sympathies of strangers, leans into it like it’s the only thing keeping her afloat in a bottomless sea of grief. He can’t blame her for turning to their empty promises, not when he’s seen how guilt eats her alive when the room gets too quiet. 

Maki doesn’t talk. Hasn’t spoken since they crossed the threshold between game and reality. He can’t tell if she’s ignoring them on purpose, pretending not to see new faces or hear words of greeting, or if she managed to bury herself so deep inside her head that she no longer remembers how to interact with the rest of the world. Shuichi thinks it might be a little of both. Each morning, Maki brushes her teeth, puts on her clothes, and walks out the door to meet the others for breakfast. She lives alone in a one room apartment, there’s no one to do these things for her. Some part of her, no matter how small, must want to take care of herself, he deduces. 

Somehow, he’s become the leader. Everyone treats him like the responsible one, the only survivor who kept his wits after the killing game shattered the feeble minds of two young hysterical women. He resents the narrative, correcting people’s ugly assumptions about his only living classmates with a smile cold enough to give them frostbite. He’s learned from death how to be generous while giving them the opposite of what they want, a skill he’ll be grateful for until it’s his turn to go. Too often people mistake his numbness for composure, attributing every level-headed decision they make moving forward to him, and he no longer cares whose toes he has to step on to carve out a moment of quiet so Maki and Himiko can breathe. 

Soon, the survivors will part ways for good. The sooner the better, he thinks. Being around each other only reminds them of what they’ve lost, their crushing failure to protect their friends. But they’re the closest thing they have to family now. Even Himiko, whose parents are still alive and willing to take her in, knows they’ll never understand what she’s been through. Who she’s become in the wake of all this havoc and destruction.

Shuichi doesn’t have a family waiting for him beyond those heavy steel doors. At least Maki can return to the orphanage, earn a living looking after the kids there. She might try to serve as an example, make sure they see how much she’s changed so they don’t follow in her footsteps. But for the false detective, all that waits is an empty room with a single stiff mattress propped up against the wall. He doesn’t know why he’s not allowed to have his memories back, what harm could possibly come from knowing more about the boy he used to be, and at the same time, he’s not eager to learn the truth. So he doesn’t ask, and it’s never brought up again. 

He takes a small silver key from his pocket, dull and worn from its frequent use, and the lock to the storage room clicks open. No sooner than he opens the door and sets foot inside does he find what he’s looking for--several boxes neatly stacked together on the table against the back wall. Maki follows, folding her coat and placing it down on a chair in the corner. Himiko pauses in the doorway, biting her lower lip to keep her emotions in check. 

Shuichi turns back to the task at hand. His breath hitches as he processes an idle thought--there are fewer boxes than he anticipated. But that’s to be expected, given the crumpled inventory sheet taped to the back of the door. According to the chart, Korekiyo’s things were confiscated by an international government organization. Things that belonged to Kaede, Rantaro, K1-B0, Kirumi, Tsumugi have already been claimed by their next of kin.

He slides two boxes towards Himiko. “Here. These belong to--belonged to Angie and Tenko. You probably knew them better than we did, so I’m entrusting their belongings to you. Please make sure nothing important gets thrown out.”

She gives a curt nod, spreading out the boxes’ corresponding files on the table. 

Maki stares quietly at the five remaining boxes on the table. For once, Shuichi knows what she’s looking for. 

“He would’ve wanted you to have this,” He says quietly, handing her the box with what’s left of a long pink coat tucked inside. She doesn’t respond, but he thinks he can hear her breathing quicken and her knuckles grip the box until they grow white as he turns away. 

That leaves the last four for himself. With a deep breath, Shuichi rolls up his sleeves, mentally preparing himself to finish what they came here to do.

. . .

Within an hour, most of the boxes are empty. Any important items are carefully wrapped in several layers of cloth and replaced, while everything else winds up in the waste bin. Shuichi has one box left to sift through, and Himiko is kind enough to offer to take the others to the front office for him. It’s her way of asking to be excused, he notes, nodding in response. She and Maki depart together, leaving him alone with nothing but the buzz of fluorescent lights and the hissing of air as it passes through the vents above to keep him company. 

He tries not to think about it too hard. Tries to tell himself he’s just doing the task he was given as a final courtesy to the friends he’ll never see again, and nothing more. But he loses the battle he’s fought for so long the moment his eyes settle on the box marked ‘Kokichi Ouma.’ 

When Shuichi feels uncomfortable, he’s usually quiet. But if he’s alone, he has a habit of talking to himself. Helps him calm his nerves. So he sinks to the floor and sits cross-legged, muttering under his breath.

“Let’s see here.” 

With bated breath, Shuichi plucks the checkered scarf dangling from one corner and delicately folds it in half. Some instinct tugs at the back of his mind, telling him not to discard it, so he places it next to him on the washed out grey carpet. 

A small black notebook catches his eye. Gingerly, he closes his hand around its spine, not wanting to accidentally damage its contents before he can review them. He places the book on one thigh and turns the cover, half expecting to see detailed notes about his former classmates scrawled in messy handwriting. Instead, what he sees stops him from mechanically flipping through its pages. 

“Huh…?” 

The soft murmur falls from his lips and spills into his lap, leaving the faint tingle of surprise on his tongue. Scribbled on the first page is an unfinished charcoal drawing of a girl. She looks about their age, maybe a year or two older, and the thin strokes that mark her lips are especially intricate. She’s missing everything upwards of her button nose, with the exception of long, pale strands of hair, pinned back by four shiny musical notes. 

_Kaede._

A pang of sorrow gnaws insistently at his chest. Didn’t Kokichi mention once that if he could bring one person back to life, it’d be Kaede? That had baffled him at the time. Kokichi clearly missed Rantaro, and the way he’d treated him like a little brother. Why he would choose to resurrect anyone else was beyond Shuichi’s imagination. The answer is one that still haunts him, no matter how hard he tries not to linger on it.

_”Because it would make you happy, Shuichi!”_

“But that’s not possible,” he mumbles, not caring that there’s no one around to hear him. You can’t bring back the dead, it’s just not possible. No matter how much he wants to see Kaede and Kaito again, tell them how much he misses them, he’ll never get the chance. 

He flips forward a couple pages, skimming a collection of childish doodles and glitter-covered stickers with frowny faces drawn on them in purple marker. Unable to stop himself from rolling his eyes, Shuichi let out a huff of exasperation. In a way, this is the perfect metaphor for Kokichi’s contradictory nature. A final puzzle to solve in the wake of so many untimely tragedies. Feeling a twinge of guilt for reducing the only remaining traces of a dead boy’s existence to something deserving of his scorn, Shuichi snaps the sketchbook closed.

Suddenly, a small black bookmark slipped out. He traces up the inner workings of the book, hesitantly peeling apart the pages once more. And then, Shuichi found himself face to face with… himself. 

Wait, what?

Caught off guard by the drawing of himself, Shuichi brings the book closer to his face. Everything about this work of art--from the shadow his old hat cast across his face, to the mole on his cheek, and the gloomy look in his eye--is sophisticated and realistic, enough to startle him into dropping it. 

The page turns on its own, falling open to reveal more drawings of Shuichi. Most of them are rough sketches depicting emotion and movement, capturing Shuichi’s passionate postures during class trials with skill he’d never attribute to anyone who doesn’t deserve the title ‘Ultimate Artist.’ How on _earth_ did he draw these from memory? He definitely didn’t smile often enough to be a reliable reference for them, he’s far too tepid. Shaking his head in disbelief, the false detective can’t help but sigh.

On the last page of Kokichi’s art journal, there’s a sketch of Shuichi that stands out from the rest. His brows are furrowed in concentration, tongue sticking out slightly in determination as he wraps a white ribbon--no, bandage--around someone’s finger. 

It all comes flooding back to him; the knife game, Kokichi’s possibly intentional slip-up, the strange way he giggled with glee as Shuichi bandaged the cut on his hand, the corny line _“I stole your heart, so now I’m satisfied!”_

“You’re so weird sometimes, Ouma. I just can’t figure you out.” 

A smile twitches at Shuichi’s lips, and this time he doesn’t smother it with a sleeve. He sets the sketchbook aside, making a mental note to mark it as ‘important’ when he takes a final inventory. 

There aren’t many things left; a fabric case with pockets stuffed to the brim, several loose photos with months and dates written on the back, and a sealed envelope with Kokichi’s name written on it. 

He decides to tackle the case first, unzipping it on the carpet in front of him, propping it up with his palms to get a better look. Inside, several pins and needles rustle around in a small plastic box, and a bunch of mismatched buttons line the inseam of the case’s inner pouch. Staples, metal clasps, and a tangled mess of white thread are carelessly shoved inside. It takes a minute for Shuichi to realize that something about all of this feels familiar. And he doesn’t quite know how he knows, but in that moment, he’s dead certain that in his hands, he’s holding the sewing kit Kokichi Ouma used to put together his own costume. 

A lump works its way into his throat, warm and swollen like a fist with a vice grip on his vocal chords, and he can’t bring himself to comment on Kokichi’s less-than-professional craftsmanship. Instead, he zips the case back up, tucking it into the checkered scarf. Once it’s finally out of sight, he breathes a sigh of relief. 

Careful not to smudge any of the photos with oil from his fingerprints, Shuichi examines each little fragment of the boy’s past. He’s astonished to see a grinning Kokichi proudly holding a bucket with several very disgruntled frogs inside. One of his front teeth is missing, he notes, starting a new pile on top of the sketchbook. The next photo in the lineup is even more shocking--dressed in a baby blue onesie, he’s curled up in his mother’s arms next to a stuffed white horse. He can’t be more than a couple days old, and the thought pries a gentle gasp from his lips. 

“You were so small…” 

There’s only one more photo left, a yearbook picture by the looks of it. A nervous Kokichi dressed in a neat black uniform with a bandage on one side of his face, eyes staring anxiously up at the camera. Shuichi’s seen the audition tapes, knows the boy used to be meek and unassuming, but part of him didn’t fully believe it. After all, so many of their memories were fake, who’s to say the tapes weren't just another part of the show? But something like this would be a long shot to fake. And deep in his gut, Shuichi knows it has to be real. 

All that’s left is the envelope. 

Ignoring the voice in his head that tells him he’s violating Kokichi’s privacy, Shuichi pries it open without fraying the edges or ripping the paper inside. His heart drops into his stomach when something in his brain clicks--it’s a letter Kokichi wrote to himself. To the Kokichi that didn’t survive the killing game. 

_"Dear Future Me,_

_I’m… not really sure what to write about. I mean, you’re me, right? You already know_ _what I’m going to say. There’s only one reason you’re here--to keep as many people alive_ _as possible. So please, try to save the others, even at the cost of your own life. Deep_ _down, we both know we won’t be missed. But… is it selfish to hope I make it out alive?_

Shuichi sucks in a breath, the cold, stale air stinging his lungs. He knows he’s not ready to read the rest, but proceeds anyway.

_I want you to do something for me. Something only you can do while you’re still you, and_ _not a useless loser like I am--protect Shuichi. He hasn’t smiled in months. Now that_ _he can’t afford to go to therapy anymore, the gap between his manic episodes grows_ _shorter every week, and it’s only a matter of time before he crashes. For better or worse,_ _you’re the only friend he’s got left. Please be strong, don’t fail him like I did. He’s a good_ _person, I promise. He knows the difference between right and wrong, but sometimes he_ _needs a small nudge in the right direction._

This is too much. He wants to look away, to stop reading. But he can’t bring himself to put it down.

_I couldn’t stop him from signing up for the killing game. But maybe you can stop him_ _from throwing away his life. Somebody needs to save him from himself. I told them I_ _wanted to be some kind of leader in the game, so hopefully you’ll be confident and l_ _evel-headed enough to make people listen._

He tries to stop reading, knows the last line will break him, but he can’t tear his eyes away.

_I don’t care what happens to me anymore, I’m not going to just let him die. Even if you_ _can’t bring yourself to love him like I do, please... save him."_

Shuichi can’t feel his throat; it’s gone completely numb, along with his fingers and toes. 

_He was in love with me._

The piercing silence in the absence of Kokichi’s words drills a hole into his head, each twitch of the lights throbbing like a fresh wound. 

_Kokichi Ouma loved me._

_And I’m never going to see his face again._

All the grief in his body comes to a head and forms a spear, piercing him from the inside out. It shatters his ribs, rips through his lungs, and severs his spine on its path to skewer his heart, mercilessly tearing him limb from limb until the white hot agony inside him bursts to the surface. He doesn't know this boy, he never got the chance to know the fabricated Kokichi either, and yet somehow this small window into a brief moment of his past life--their past lives--is enough to break him open and leave him bleeding out on the stone cold floor. And it's too much, this is all too much for him to handle, he knew from the beginning it would be but went ahead anyway, because it's the least he could do for his friends, but as the last shard of composure snaps violently, an ugly, selfish part of him wonders if it was really worth the effort.

Oh _fuck_ , it hurts.

He can't see, he can't hear, he can't feel, he can't think; all he can do is taste iron and salt on his lips, sliced open by his teeth, and for a moment he forgets the blood there must be his own. Shuichi knows he's far too young for this to be the worst day of his life. What's the point of living if it means suffering more, losing things he cares about, watching death steal the people he loves right out from under his nose? What value does he add to the world that not a single one of his dead friends would surpass ten times over in his place? With how utterly insignificant his existence is, he has to face it--there's no good reason he's not the one six feet under. And honestly, he's starting to think maybe it would be better if he was dead. 

Shuichi’s not sure how much time passes before he realizes he’s crying. He can hear someone’s distant sobs echoing around the room, and it takes him a minute to recognize and claim them as his own. 

. . .

He doesn’t remember placing Kokichi’s things back in the box, covering them with his jacket, or walking down the hall and out the exit. He doesn’t remember waiting at the bus stop, strangers staring at him, whispering behind his back. He doesn’t remember walking half a mile home in a blizzard, wearing nothing but his pants, a pair of boots, and the shirt on his back. He doesn’t remember climbing up the stairs to his apartment, or collapsing the moment he locks the door behind him, before he can even turn on the crusty old radiator. 

What Shuichi does remember is waking up on the couch, a wool blanket draped over him and a heating pad on his head. He feels something soft rub against his throat, and he looks down. The black and white checkered scarf is wrapped around his neck like a protective charm, and for some reason, the sight of it makes him feel warm.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to be honest with you--this is probably one of the worst pieces I've ever written. I loved the concept, but to me, its execution feels laughably shallow. 
> 
> But, SaiOuma week must go on, and I'm really glad I wrote this piece. I needed a chance to get out my feelings about Kokichi's canon death and V3's ending, and it helped me work through a lot of my frustrations and sad thoughts while I'm stuck at home with some very narrow-minded family members. 
> 
> So, if you're reading this, thank you for tolerating the temporary drop in my quality of writing. I promise I'll make up for it in the future <3
> 
> ...
> 
> ***( Edit ) 8/16/20: I gave some extra padding to the moment where Shuichi finally feels the weight of the burden he's carrying on his shoulders, since he can't just be numb and glide through life on autopilot forever. I hope it adds something positive to your reading experience :')


End file.
